Sunday 14 November 2021

Meanwhile...

A child we knew thought that "Meanwhile, the queen..." was the name of the queen in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Future historians have to show that events occur simultaneously in different places, then intersect.

 In Robert Heinlein's Future History, Volume II, while people from Earth live and work on the Moon, Mars and Venus, a theocratic movement that will cause an interregnum of spaceflight grows in the US. Technology progresses while society temporarily regresses.

In James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, while the anti-agathics are discovered in New York, anti-gravity is discovered on Jupiter and a Senator secretly manipulates these events from Washington. Chapters alternate.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, while Adzel studies on Earth, van Rijn adventures in space. While Falkayn rises in Solar Spice & Liquors and Juan Hernandez celebrates Christmas on Ivanhoe, van Rijn has further adventures in space but also receives Emil Dalmady's report on Earth. While Falkayn leads the first trade pioneer crew and saves civilization on Merseia, van Rijn continues to alternate between space and Earth and problems grow in the League.

In Anderson's Harvest Of Stars future history, Volume IV, while download Guthrie travels from Alpha Centauri to Sol, Fenn moves from the Moon to Earth to Mars.

Most of these characters eventually meet in their respective histories. 

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And that confusing overlapping of events and persons was realistic, even if it made it very hard to sort out the correct chronological listing of the stories.

Ad astra! Sean